


Unlikely Allies

by talkingtothesky



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene has a deadline coming up, Sam has too much time and curiosity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlikely Allies

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a larger sixth form college AU I'd like to write someday. Gene and Sam are 16-17 and in the first year of their A Levels in 2006.

Sam was settled in his favourite corner of the library, ready to spend the next few hours working through his maths homework in his free periods. Mum'd let him practise his guitar as soon as he got home if he managed to finish it all. He was halfway through a page of trigonometry when he heard a muffled curse from the next row of shelves along. Sam paused for a moment, then carried on writing. There were a series of scraping noises, wooden bookshelf creaking as several heavy textbooks were yanked out and thwacked down on a table. Distracted, Sam pressed the wrong button on his calculator and lost the whole calculation. He looked back at his workings, found the numbers again and was about to re-enter them from scratch when he heard a low groan and lost his concentration entirely. Frustrated, and curious, he slid back his chair, stepped around his table and walked quietly to the end of his aisle. He rounded the corner and there, sitting with his head in his hands, was Gene Hunt.

 

Sam had only joined this school in September, and for the first month or two Hunt had tried to bully him. Gene'd been here for years, had all his mates trailing after him in the corridors, a massive gob on him and the pick of almost all the girls in a five-mile radius. But Sam wasn't scared of people like him. He'd gone toe-to-toe with him and won, and after that Gene and his crew had left Sam alone.

 

"Didn't expect to find _you_ here," Sam said.

 

Gene hadn't heard him coming. He stood up so quickly he knocked his chair over. Sam felt a kind of cruel pleasure in startling him. "Piss off!" Gene hissed loudly.

 

Sam glanced at the librarian behind her desk, she usually came down on swearing like a ton of bricks, but she was far enough away and engrossed in a phone call. Sam remembered her banning Hunt too, so how he'd got in here...and why? He normally wouldn't be seen dead studying voluntarily.

 

Between the small towers of large textbooks, Sam's gaze fell on a mangled red ring-binder open on the table. Sam knew it was Gene's PE folder, he'd seen him hitting Chris round the head with it at lunch the other day. Then it had been full of paper, and Chris had had a very sore head for a few hours afterward. Now more than half of its contents was gone, and what was left had been torn to shreds.

 

"What happened to your coursework?" Physical Education was the only subject Gene cared about. He was going to be a boxer, he'd told everyone when they had a careers day. It seemed he'd been in training for it most of his time at school, and several of his peers knew the damage he could do first hand, Sam included.

 

Gene drew himself up to his full height. "Never you mind, Tyler."

 

Sam's eyebrows went up, knowing he ought to tread carefully when Gene was glaring at him as though he wanted to charge like a wild bull at a red flag. But Gene's stuff was in tatters, and the part of Sam which had dreamed of being a detective since he was four years old wanted to know what was going on. He took a few steps forwards. In a flash Hunt had come around his table and stood right in front of Sam, breathing hard.

 

Sam raised his hands leisurely, palms forward in mock surrender. "Come on, don't be an idiot." He stared right back into Gene's eyes, daring him to strike. The librarian would take Sam's word over Gene's, any day. They remained nose-to-nose for what felt like a minute, before Gene's eyes slid to the left and he turned sideways to grab another book from a shelf. As he took it back to his desk, Sam highly doubted he needed anything on fish breeding for his work.

 

His own maths questions forgotten, Sam followed him. Gene righted his fallen chair and sat back down. On the opposite side of the table, Sam grabbed the other chair, turned it back-to-front and straddled it. "Can I help?"

 

"No."

 

"Did your brother...?"

 

"What is your problem, Sam? Keep your nose out of my business or I'll break it."

 

Sam leant forward on his elbows, unperturbed. "Tell me what happened to your folder and I'll leave you alone."

 

"The dog ate it." Gene snapped.

 

"I don't believe you."

 

"Well, that's tough. Now get lost."

 

Sam tapped his fingers on the back of the chair and waited expectantly. Why he cared so much all of a sudden, he couldn't say, but he felt thrilled and empowered, pursuing the truth like this.

 

Gene loosened the knot of his tie and took his blazer off. Sam had spent the past few weeks in Psychology studying body language, not that he needed it to recognise he had Hunt on the ropes.

 

"Look. I'm supposed to hand this in next week. Whatever you want, I haven't got time for it."

 

Approaching deadline, then. That explained the unusual library visit. Gene had picked up his pen and was scribbling something furiously. Sam reached for the fish book, held it up by one corner and asked if Gene had a pet.

 

Gene glanced up, confused frown all over his face. "What? Oh. No. My dad wouldn't allow it."

 

Sam picked up a jagged piece of paper with surprisingly neat handwriting on it. Gene'd evidently given a lot of care to this project. Sam suddenly felt sorry for him.

 

"Did you type any of it up?" Sam asked, more softly. "You could just print it off again..."

 

"Don't have a computer at home. Can't afford it."

 

Sam's mouth fell open in shock. "So that massive bulk of stuff..."

 

Gene was writing again, head down. "Four months' work and me old man ripped it up in five minutes."

 

"Shit, Gene..." Gene flinched and Sam realised he'd put a hand out to squeeze his shoulder without thinking about it. Awkwardly, he let go of him.

 

So, he'd got his answer. Mystery solved. Sam felt no sense of triumph in it. Seeing Gene run his fingers through his hair anxiously, he felt sick.

 

Hefting a big book from the top of the stack, Sam opened it to the contents page. "What do you need from this one?"

 

Gene looked suspicious, but exhausted. "Types of joints."

 

Sam skipped his History lessons that afternoon. His mum would've been appalled, but they were only meant to be doing online research and he was well ahead with the reading anyway. And Sam was...enjoying himself. Gene could remember surprisingly large amounts of what he had written in each section of the project, and Sam even learnt things he'd not covered yet in Biology. They worked through the textbooks together. One of the questions they found was _What do you understand by the term 'physical recreation'?_ They had a right laugh over possible answers to that. Sam helped him find page numbers, Gene made a start on copying out what could be salvaged of his old notes onto fresh paper.

 

They worked until the end of day bell went, Sam surreptitiously sharing his packed sandwiches under the desk at lunchtime. Gene looked continually puzzled by him, and Sam too was somewhat alarmed by how quickly he was warming to the school bully. But he was clearly a nice enough guy when he wasn't with Carling and the others.

 

At quarter past three, though, when the bell went, Gene looked at his watch, horror-struck. "I was meant to meet Stu," he said, gathering up his things and dashing off so quickly that Sam didn't have time to ask about tomorrow.

 

Gene didn't reappear at school until the Monday of the following week. Sam had looked out for him in Friday morning's Maths, but it wasn't unusual for Gene to miss that lesson anyway. He even asked Chris whether he'd seen him in PE - his answer was a floppy-fringed headshake. During Monday break-time, then, Sam was leaning against the wall chatting to Annie when he spotted Gene striding along the corridor, on his own for once instead of followed by a gang. Sam shot out a hand and gripped Gene's forearm. Gene nearly took a reflexive swing for him until he saw who it was.

 

"Did you manage to hand in your coursework?" Sam asked.

 

Gene looked around furtively, clearly thinking of his reputation, not wanting to be seen with Sam. "Gerroff me."

 

"Sam? What's going on?" Annie interjected.

 

Sam didn't answer her, making a show of firmly shaking hands with Gene. What he was actually doing was pressing a tiny, tightly-folded piece of paper into Gene's palm. It had his mobile number on it, along with _'text me, if you're in trouble'_. Gene yanked his hand away, but he put it straight in his pocket, so Sam knew the note was safely in his grasp.

 

From there, all he could do for now was wait for Gene to come to him. He did check with Mr Woolf though, Gene's PE teacher, and his work was all handed in on time and finished 'to an exceptional standard'. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Now he only had to fix the rest of Gene's life...


End file.
